Whose mass graves are these?

The phrase “mass graves” in Iraq has long been associated with former leader Saddam Hussein. But not anymore. In U.S.-administered and occupied Iraq people now talk of ‘Bush’s mass graves.’

More and more mass graves are being unearthed with hundreds of bodies, most of them unidentified, but all of them dug in the post-Saddam era which Iraqis associate with President Bush and his occupation troops.

One such mass grave is the one discovered recently in Mahmodiya which, according to Hareth al-Ubaidi, a human rights activist and Member of Parliament holds “hundreds of bodies and bears all the marks of Saddam Hussein but does not belong to him.”

It is a characteristic of the ‘new and democratic Iraq’ the U.S. and its Iraqi allies are keen to build.

“The current mass graves we are talking about are not those of Saddam Hussein,” said Ubaidi.

They are, he added, a feature of the U.S.-dominated, post-Saddam era.

No one says the U.S. itself dug mass graves in Iraq. U.S. occupation troops are notorious for their being trigger-happy bands and the worst jailors the world has ever known. There is enough evidence of this in Iraq.

But many Iraqis today have none to blame for the atrocities unfolding in their country but the United States and specifically its current President. Zaman